History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12)

Volume Iv.

LONDON

THE GROLIER SOCIETY

PUBLISHERS

THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE AND THE HYKSOS IN EGYPT

SYRIA: THE PART PLAYED BY IT IN THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD-- BABYLON AND THE FIRST CHALDAEAN EMPIRE--THE DOMINION OF THE HYKSOS: AHMOSIS.

Syria, owing to its geographical position, condemned to be subject to neighbouring powers-Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon, the valley of the Orontes and of the Litany, and surrounding regions: the northern table-land, the country about Damascus, the Mediterranean coast, the Jordan and the Dead Sea-Civilization and primitive inhabitants, Semites and Asiatics: the almost entire absence of Egyptian influence, the predominance of that of Chaldaea.

Babylon, its ruins and its environs--It extends its rule over Mesopotamia; its earliest dynasty and its struggle with Central Chaldaea-Elam, its geographical position, its peoples; Kutur-Nakhunta conquers Larsam-Bimsin (Eri-Aku); Khammurabi founds the first Babylonian empire; Ids victories, his buildings, his canals--The Elamites in Syria: Kudurlagamar--Syria recognizes the authority of Hammurabi and his successors.

The Hyksos conquer Egypt at the end of the XIVth dynasty; the founding of Avaris--Uncertainty both of ancients and moderns with regard to the origin of the Hyksos: probability of their being the Khati--Their kings adopt the manners and civilization of the Egyptians: the monuments of Khiani and of Apophis I. and II--The XVth dynasty.

Semitic incursions following the Hyksos--The migration of the Phoenicians and the Israelites into Syria: Terah, Abraham and his sojourn in the land of Canaan--Isaac, Jacob, Joseph: the Israelites go down into Egypt and settle in the land of Goshen.

Thebes revolts against the Hyksos: popular traditions as to the origin of the war, the romance of Apophis and Saquinri--The Theban princesses and the last Icings of the XVIIth dynasty: Tiudqni Kamosis, Ahmosis I.--The lords of El-Kab, and the part they played during the war of independence--The taking of Avaris and the expulsion of the Ilylcsos.

The reorganization of Egypt--Ahmosis I. and his Nubian wars, the reopening of the quarries of Turah--Amenothes I. and his mother Nofritari: the jewellery of Queen Ahhotpu--The wars of Amenothes I., the apotheosis of Nofritari--The accession of Thutmosis I. and the re-generation of Egypt.

Chapter I--the First Chaldaean Empire and the Hyksos in Egypt

Syria: the part played by it in the ancient world--Babylon and the first Chaldaean empire--The dominion of the Hyksos: Ahmosis.

Some countries seem destined from their origin to become the battle-fields of the contending nations which environ them. Into such regions, and to their cost, neighbouring peoples come from century to century to settle their quarrels and bring to an issue the questions of supremacy which disturb their little corner of the world. The nations around are eager for the possession of a country thus situated; it is seized upon bit by bit, and in the strife dismembered and trodden underfoot: at best the only course open to its inhabitants is to join forces with one of its invaders, and while helping the intruder to overcome the rest, to secure for themselves a position of permanent servitude. Should some unlooked-for chance relieve them from the presence of their foreign lord, they will probably be quite incapable of profiting by the respite which fortune puts in their way, or of making any effectual attempt to organize themselves in view of future attacks. They tend to become split up into numerous rival communities, of which even the pettiest will aim at autonomy, keeping up a perpetual frontier war for the sake of becoming possessed of or of retaining a glorious sovereignty over a few acres of corn in the plains, or some wooded ravines in the mountains. Year after year there will be scenes of bloody conflict, in which petty armies will fight petty battles on behalf of petty interests, but so fiercely, and with such furious animosity, that the country will suffer from the strife as much as, or even more than, from an invasion. There will be no truce to their struggles until they all fall under the sway of a foreign master, and, except in the interval between two conquests, they will have no national existence, their history being almost entirely merged in that of other nations.

From remote antiquity Syria was in the condition just described, and thus destined to become subject to foreign rule. Chaldaea, Egypt, Assyria, and Persia presided in turn over its destinies, while Macedonia and the empires of the West were only waiting their opportunity to lay hold of it. By its position it formed a kind of meeting-place where most of the military nations of the ancient world were bound sooner or later to come violently into collision. Confined between the sea and the desert, Syria offers the only route of easy access to an army marching northwards from Africa into Asia, and all conquerors, whether attracted to Mesopotamia or to Egypt by the accumulated riches on the banks of the Euphrates or the Nile, were obliged to pass through it in order to reach the object of their cupidity. It might, perhaps, have escaped this fatal consequence of its position, had the formation of the country permitted its tribes to mass themselves together, and oppose a compact body to the invading hosts; but the range of mountains which forms its backbone subdivides it into isolated districts, and by thus restricting each tribe to a narrow existence maintained among them a mutual antagonism. The twin chains, the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon, which divide the country down the centre, are composed of the same kind of calcareous rocks and sandstone, while the same sort of reddish clay has been deposited on their slopes by the glaciers of the same geological period.*

* Drake remarked in the Lebanon several varieties of limestone, which have been carefully catalogued by Blanche and Lartet. Above these strata, which belong to the Jurassic formation, come reddish sandstone, then beds of very hard yellowish limestone, and finally marl. The name Lebanon, in Assyrian Libnana, would appear to signify "the white mountain;" the Amorites called the Anti-Lebanon Saniru, Shenir, according to the Assyrian texts and the Hebrew books.

Arid and bare on the northern side, they sent out towards the south featureless monotonous ridges, furrowed here and there by short narrow valleys, hollowed out in places into basins or funnel-shaped ravines, which are widened year by year by the down-rush of torrents. These ridges, as they proceed southwards, become clothed with verdure and offer a more varied outline, the ravines being more thickly wooded, and the summits less uniform in contour and colouring. Lebanon becomes white and ice-crowned in winter, but none of its peaks rises to the altitude of perpetual snows: the highest of them, Mount Timarun, reaches 10,526 feet, while only three others exceed 9000.* Anti-Lebanon is, speaking generally, 1000 or 1300 feet lower than its neighbour: it becomes higher, however, towards the south, where the triple peak of Mount Hermon rises to a height of 9184 feet. The Orontes and the Litany drain the intermediate space. The Orontes rising on the west side of the Anti-Lebanon, near the ruins of Baalbek, rushes northwards in such a violent manner, that the dwellers on its banks call it the rebel--Nahr el-Asi.** About a third of the way towards its mouth it enters a depression, which ancient dykes help to transform into a lake; it flows thence, almost parallel to the sea-coast, as far as the 36th degree of latitude. There it meets the last spurs of the Amanos, but, failing to cut its way through them, it turns abruptly to the west, and then to the south, falling into the Mediterranean after having received an increase to its volume from the waters of the Afrin.

* Bukton-Drake, Unexplored Syria, vol. i. p. 88, attributed to it an altitude of 9175 English feet; others estimate it at 10,539 feet. The mountains which exceed 3000 metres are Dahr el-Kozib, 3046 metres; Jebel-Mislriyah, 3080 metres; and Jebel-Makhmal or Makmal, 3040 metres. As a matter of fact, these heights are not yet determined with the accuracy desirable.

** The Egyptians knew it in early times by the name of Aunrati, or Araunti; it is mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions under the name of Arantu. All are agreed in acknowledging that this name is not Semitic, and an Aryan origin is attributed to it, but without convincing proof; according to Strabo (xvi. ii. Sec. 7, p. 750), it was originally called Typhon, and was only styled Orontes after a certain Orontes had built the first bridge across it. The name of Axios which it sometimes bears appears to have been given to it by Greek colonists, in memory of a river in Macedonia. This is probably the origin of the modern name of Asi, and the meaning, rebellious river, which Arab tradition attaches to the latter term, probably comes from a popular etymology which likened Axios to Asi, the identification was all the easier since it justifies the epithet by the violence of its current.

The Litany rises a short distance from the Orontes; it flows at first through a wide and fertile plain, which soon contracts, however, and forces it into a channel between the spurs of the Lebanon and the Galilaean hills. The water thence makes its way between two cliffs of perpendicular rock, the ravine being in several places so narrow that the branches of the trees on the opposite sides interlace, and an active man could readily leap across it. Near Yakhmur some detached rocks appear to have been arrested in their fall, and, leaning like flying buttresses against the mountain face, constitute a natural bridge over the torrent. The basins of the two rivers lie in one valley, extending eighty leagues in length, divided by an almost imperceptible watershed into two beds of unequal slope. The central part of the valley is given up to marshes. It is only towards the south that we find cornfields, vineyards, plantations of mulberry and olive trees, spread out over the plain, or disposed in terraces on the hillsides. Towards the north, the alluvial deposits of, the Orontes have gradually formed a black and fertile soil, upon which grow luxuriant crops of cereals and other produce. Cole-Syria, after having generously nourished the Oriental empires which had preyed upon her, became one of the granaries of the Roman world, under the capable rule of the Caesars.

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